- The Eastern Cape Department of Education admitted that withholding billions of rands from public schools was unlawful and unconstitutional.
- An estimated R6 billion has been withheld since 2020, while some schools struggled to afford stationery, textbooks, municipal services, and basic supplies.
- The DA will demand a full accounting of every rand withheld and urgent intervention to ensure schools receive the funding they are entitled to.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) is demanding that Education MEC, Fundile Gade, and officials from the Eastern Cape Department of Education be brought before the Education Portfolio Committee to explain how the Department unlawfully and unconstitutionally withheld billions of rands from public schools. This is a disgrace and a betrayal of the province’s children.
This follows the Department’s admission in the Makhanda High Court that, for years, it had deprived some of the poorest schools in South Africa of funding intended to keep their doors open and classrooms functioning.
Since 2020, approximately R6 billion has reportedly been withheld from schools. In the current financial year alone, no-fee schools should receive R1,835 per learner, but the Department has transferred just R1,101, retaining 40% of the allocation. Across approximately 1.58 million learners, this amounts to roughly R1.16 billion withheld this year alone.
This is money intended for textbooks, stationery, maintenance, electricity, water, and the basic materials needed to teach children.
Instead, parents already struggling to survive have reportedly been asked to provide toilet paper, cleaning products, and photocopy paper. Teachers and principals have had to buy educational materials from their own pockets, while some schools have faced disconnected municipal services.
The court order requires the Department to pay schools their full allocation from the 2027/28 financial year and to report on its compliance until September 2027. But the approximately R6 billion already withheld will not be returned to the schools that were deprived of it.
MEC Gade cannot simply draw a line under six years of unlawful conduct and move on.
The DA will request that the Legislature’s Education Portfolio Committee urgently summon the MEC and senior departmental officials to account for how these decisions were made, what happened to the retained funds, and why the required funding processes were ignored.
We will also demand a detailed breakdown of the amounts withheld from schools in each financial year since 2020 and how those funds were ultimately spent.
Every rand unlawfully withheld represents resources taken out of a classroom. Eastern Cape learners should not have to wait until 2027 for their government to start obeying the law.